Friday, August 7, 2009

Driving your soul.

A tour that is constantly known as a "boy tour" is slowly but surely widening it's doors to lots of female talent, including several that I've already posted my interviews from like The Millionaires and Alana Grace, but one that is best known in Canada is the talented Lights.

Lights, also previously known as Valerie Poxleitner, is one of the most down to earth people I've been lucky enough to meet despite what some images of her may portray. She is incredibly humble despite the success she has had in the past year (she won the Juno for best new artist this past March!) and it's definetly a good surprise. Best known for her single and video for "Drive My Soul", she is about to release her first full length album which drops in Canada on September 22nd and will be touring all fall to support it with Keane!

Playing the not so typical instrument of keytar, Lights will surely be putting on some great shows this fall and you should definetly try to catch one!

How does it feel to be one of the only girls on the tour where it seems like such a boy tour?

It's honestly, I mean, it could be weird but I think if you approach it just as I'm a musician just like everybody else and as long as you're into that kind of respect. Do your best thing on stage and don't treat anyone any different, you're going to be treated the same way. I mean, there is an advantage that people are walking around checking out all the bands. A lot of bands are like four or five guys on stage or whatever which is great, depending on, well all bands are different but when there's a girl, whether or not they like it, they'll still stop so it's an advantage that way. You get a little bit of extra attention, extra audience.

I think this is your first tour-

Yeah, I did two dates last year but it doesn't really count.

Your first whole warped tour, can you give any advice to bands that maybe you didn't have when you first came on? I mean you've been on it since Pomona.

I would say, wear sunscreen, bring face wipes and drink a lot of water. That's definetly key..and treat everybody really nicely like you would want to be treated. That's really important in such a close environment like this for an extended period of time.

Are there any bands that you're really interested in seeing yourself, like bands you've liked from the past, bands that you're going to be on tour with the whole summer?

Well I mean, aside from discovering new bands on the tour like InnerPartySystem and the rest., there are some long time favorite bands of mine like Less Than Jake actually that just finished playing now. Love them so much and Underoath, The Devil Wears Prada, ones that I've listened to for a long time, it's been really cool to watch them play every day.

What's your favorite memory so part of tour? Like, any moments that stand out even though it's just started?

There's been a lot of really really fun stuff that's happened. Um, one that I liked is that we all did a bowling day , and we all went bowling. It was like for charity, we all had to wear shirts that said our band name on it, kind of people didn't know who eachother was, so they had to wear their bands names on our shirts and we were recognizing all the people but it was a blast, it was a really fun night!

Did you get a little far into the tournament?

Oh, we got to second round. We made second round (laughs)

I know it's like a big family bonding experience on Warped Tour. I mean you meet all these bands and spend all this time with 800 people every day. Have you created any special bonds, made new friends with bands that you may not have known before this tour started?

Um, well one that I kind of expected was the band that we're sharing a bus with, dear and the headlights. We've gotten really close to them. Obviously, we wake up and see their faces every morning, one foot away from you so we have a really really special bond with them and it's really nice to be back on the road with VersaEmerge and In This Moment. We toured with them in the UK a couple of months ago and it's nice to see them and we really have this special connection with them and I mean we're also really getting along with the guys from A Rocket To The Moon, real sweethearts.

How did you get involved in the tour? I mean, were you approached by Kevin(Lyman)? How did it come about?

I don't know, I guess Kevin Lyman was actually a fan of my music and he, I guess, gave me the initation last year with the two dates that I dropped in on and that's why this year, well I'm only the first month but, yeah so it was kind of cool and he featured me on the web site and everything so I feel very honoured that Kevin Lyman, who I'm staring at right now. In the little straw hat. He really did help and it's really expanding my audience, and it's given me a lot of luck.

Awesome. What are your plans for post warped tour? Are you touring, are you going to come back to Canada, Toronto which I know is where you're from?

Definetly, definetly. I'm actually going on tour with Keane in September. We're going to come to Montreal at the Metropolis, so definetly check that out and my record comes out on September 22nd. It's coming out a week early in Canada then in the states because Canada's special that way!

Thank you so much and I'll be sure to catch your show at Metropolis.

Oh my goodness!

--You can find more of her music here and can see her video for her hit single "Drive My Soul" below!